When President Donald Trump launched the United States into a war with Iran, the conflict was thousands of miles away from many and the consequences seemed remote. Months later, the war has spread beyond the battlefield.
Oil prices have surged, governments are scrambling to contain rising fuel costs and protests have erupted globally.
For people living through this massive disruption, the war has become an economic burden and fueling political unrest around the world.
The war has severely disrupted oil and gas shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, a critical route for about 20% of global oil consumption.
As supplies have been squeezed, oil prices have climbed above $100 a barrel, driving up the cost of fuel around the world.
Now governments must decide whether to pass these costs onto its consumers or increase spending to keep prices down.
More than 40% of Bangladesh’s electricity comes from imported liquefied natural gas, with Qatar once supplying 95% of those imports.
Bangladesh’s garment industry, its largest export sector, has also suffered as 55% of knitwear factories reported buyers canceling or cutting orders since late August, while around 78% have partially halted production.
“Industrial growth is slowing down, and production is going down,” Power Minister Iqbal Hasan Mahmud said.
Even Portugal, a relatively wealthy European country, has not been able to shield consumers from the energy shock of the war.
Diesel prices reached an all-time high in early September. The government had already cut the Tax on Petroleum and Energy Products on exceptional basis but prices continued to set records.
Portugal’s energy regulator, the Energy Services Regulatory Authority, investigated earlier price increases to see whether fuel companies were profiteering and found “no evidence of operators taking advantage.”
Syria consumes roughly 300,000 barrels of oil daily but produces only about 100,000, leaving it reliant on imports.
Fuel prices have risen sharply as regional supplies have tightened, with diesel up 40%, prompting protests throughout the country and leading to Syria’s energy minister being summoned before parliament.
The government now faces public anger over a crisis it had no part in starting.
However, the energy shock could prove temporary.
Europe experienced a similar crisis after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, when gas prices surged and factories curtailed production, but prices eventually eased as countries found alternatives and reduced demand.
Nonetheless, temporary does not mean harmless.
That crisis produced stubborn inflation and economic disruption, some of it lasting beyond the crisis itself.
For countries now absorbing the cost of the war, it is not a matter of when fuel prices will fall, but who will bear the burden until they do.
Trump may view this shock as acceptable, but that cost is being felt by people who had no influence over it.
If the conflict continues to destabilize economies and fuel public backlash, its most lasting consequences may not be felt in Iran alone, but in the instability it leaves everywhere.
